In the late 90s I installed several Intel-produced servers (i.e. Intel reference platforms shipped as "bare bones" computers w/ RAM and storage to be provided b

In the late 90s I installed several Intel-produced servers (i.e. Intel reference platforms shipped as "bare bones" computers w/ RAM and storage to be provided by the integrator) that used the LANDesk Server Manager Pro[0] software and "Emergency Management Card" (EMC) for "lights out" management. (I'm talking about boxes like the AP450GX, BB440FX, RC440FX-- Pentium Pro to early Pentium II timeframe.) Given how reference code for the x86 platform never dies I've often wondered how much of the current IPMI edifice dates back to this hardware and software. As a point of note, the default password for the Intel LANDesk Emergency Management Card was "calvin". If you worked with earlier versions of the Dell iDRAC this will be a familiar password. I assume it's not coincidence. (As an aside: I was told by an Intel employee that the code name for the EMC was "Hobbes" but I can't find that documented anywhere.) You see versions of the EMC periodically on eBay.[1] There were both ISA and PCI versions. They're an x86 PC on a card. Some (all?) of them have an integral UPS. They had a PCMCIA slot to attach out-of-band management, an external power supply, and connected to the server motherboard through both the card's host bus interface and via proprietary connectors. I've downloaded firmware for some of the EMC versions and looked it over. It looks like some of the EMC versions an embedded DOS machine. (This has been one of my idle "when I get to it" projects and I haven't actually tried to reverse-engineer any of the code or get it running under qemu, though I'd like to.) Third-party companies who sold the Intel reference platforms (Unisys, Fujitsu, ALR/Gateway, NCR) offered these cards, too. It's a good giveaway that they're using an Intel reference platform when you see the card on-offer. References to "LDSM" are a giveaway. It'd be really wild if anybody on here knows anything about the heritage. [0] https://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/1998/ld103098.htm https://www.intel.com/pressroom/archive/releases/1998/ld1030... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20240903131630/https://www.ebay.com/p/127953588 https://web.archive.org/web/20240903131630/https://www.ebay....